Page 49 of The House at Hope Corner
When Ned woke to milk the cows, she’d taken the coward’s way out and feigned sleep until he’d left the room. What would she have said to him? He was keeping something important from her and surely if he trusted her she would have been part of the conversation last night? Instead,shewas one of the people from whom they were keeping the secret and that was what hurt most of all. They were supposed to be a couple, a team supporting one another through the good times and the bad, but last night she had felt excluded. After everything that she had done to help with Fraser, she had never felt less like a part of the family. It made her silently question whether Ned really loved her at all.
And then there was Caroline, the perfect blue-eyed blonde who Flora had never taken to and had chastised herself for feeling jealous of. But after last night she finally realised how much Caroline had insinuated herself into their lives. How she was always around, laying tiny barbs with her words, faking friendship and pretending to be caring when, in fact, she was anything but. Flora had no idea what hold Caroline had over Ned and his family, but something certainly wasn’t right. She gave a shiver when she thought how calculating Caroline’s behaviour had been last night.
Flora swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up. She had two choices: she could either confront Ned and demand to know what was going on, or she could pretend that nothing was happening. Except, it wasn’t really a choice; from what Ned had said, time was not a luxury they had.
It was, however, still early and she doubted whether Hannah would be up yet, preferring to stay by Fraser’s side, which meant that she would have a little time on her own to gather her thoughts. Probably not much time, but it was better than nothing. She pulled on some clothes and went quietly downstairs and into the kitchen.
‘I’ll take you out in a minute, boy,’ she whispered, running a hand along the soft fur of Brodie’s back as she passed him on her way to grab a glass of water. The study was the obvious place to start looking, but first there was somewhere else she wanted to check, and she kicked herself for not having followed her instinct before. She crept past the door to the dining room, which was still closed, and went into the living room.
The mugs from the night before were still on the blanket box and she put them on the floor before lifting the lid to peer at all the things she had moved there a few days ago – more specifically, the thing which had been hidden inside a roll of tablecloth. Just what was it that someone had wanted to conceal?
She lifted out the piles of fabric and dumped them unceremoniously on the floor, pulling them apart until she found what she was looking for. She pulled the folder onto her lap, turning it around until it was the right way up and she could inspect the contents.
The first page was a bill, over-stamped with a banner of red ink which declared it to be a final warning. Flora blanched when she saw the amount. It was dated a month ago, just a few days before she had come to the farm, in fact. The second piece of paper was also a bill, as was the third. The fourth was a solicitor’s letter and the fifth… Flora let the papers fall to her lap, her stomach churning with anxiety. There must have been twenty-odd invoices in the file and between them they spelled out the fact that the farm was in debt to the tune of something approaching forty thousand pounds.
She had to force herself to look through the rest of the papers, not because she wanted to, but because now that she knew the farm was in so much debt, she needed to know why. There must be some clue that would explain what had happened. The farm accounts were kept on the computer in the study and yet these invoices had been separated from the others. Why was that?
She checked the dates again and realised that they spanned a period of a few months from before Christmas last year. It was now February. What was evident though was that these were bills for routine items, run-of-the-mill things that the farm would need on a regular basis; they had not been incurred through some huge unforeseen calamity that necessitated the purchase of new and expensive equipment, for example. In a way this was far worse, because it meant that the farm was simply not holding its head above water.
She glanced up towards the living room door and then back down at the folder in her hands. It had been hidden among a pile of tablecloths, in the dining room… Somehow this didn’t strike her as something that Ned would do; the dining room was Hannah’s domain, and if she had hidden the invoices then she must know the full extent of the problem. But who else knew? Did Ned? Or Fraser? Had the stress of being in so much debt been a contributing factor in his heart attack? She thought back to the conversation she had overheard the night before, trying to recall the actual words spoken.
After a few more moments she gathered together the invoices and placed them back in the folder but, instead of putting them back in the blanket box, she simply piled everything else back in and got to her feet. Pausing at the living room door, she stole another glance down the hallway and walked calmly in the other direction, slipping into the study where she put the folder down on the large desk and pulled the door behind her as she left. Almost closed, but not quite.
Five minutes later she was back again, carrying a box of her art supplies and, after nudging the door open with her hip, plonked it on the desk. This time when she left, she made sure the door was firmly closed behind her. Then she went back through to the kitchen, opened the back door so that Brodie could go out for a wee and stood with the reassuring solidness of the wood behind her, gasping in lungful after lungful of the sweet morning air.
Her head was spinning. Half an hour ago she had woken up wanting answers. Now that she had them, or some of them at least, she wasn’t so sure she wanted them at all. Nor was she sure if she was brave enough to find out all the rest of the pieces of the jigsaw, and what they would mean. A few weeks ago, she had come to the farm in love, excited, and hopeful for a new future. Now, though, it felt like the rug was being pulled out from under her, and the dreams she had were slipping further and further away. The tentative grasp she’d thought she’d had on life at the farm had proved itself to be nothing more than an illusion, and as for her relationships, perhaps they were the biggest illusion of them all. The trouble was, you couldn’t demand honesty from people when you weren’t being entirely honest yourself…
She gave a wan smile as Brodie came back into view, his tail waving gently as he spotted her. It looked set to be another beautiful day, but this early, still a little cool. Given a choice she would happily go back to bed and sleep for the rest of the day, but if she was to have a future at all, if any of them were, she needed to get to the bottom of this mystery, and soon.
With her head so distracted, Flora really hadn’t thought she would be able to draw at all but, surprisingly, after about ten minutes of thinking she would have to give up, she suddenly found the flow and the calm that came with it. So it was not until a good couple of hours later that she became aware of voices in the hallway, and footsteps getting closer.
It was Ned who appeared, his head bobbing around the door, not really expecting to see her, and almost doing a double take when he did. The look of surprise on his face was quickly replaced by a grin.
‘Blimey, I thought I’d lost you for a minute. Mum’s just making a brew, would you like one?’
‘Oooh, yes please. Sorry, I got carried away and forgot the time.’ She checked her watch as if to corroborate her statement. ‘I’m gasping for a cuppa actually.’ She dropped her paintbrush into the glass of water on the desk, now a murky shade of brown, and tipped her head to one side, surveying her work. ‘I’m rather pleased with that,’ she said. ‘Here, have a look.’
She waited while he came around the desk to stand behind her. ‘What are you doing in here anyway?’ he asked casually.
‘Hmmm?’
He bent to kiss the top of her head. ‘I just wondered why you were in here. Wouldn’t you have more room in the kitchen?’ He reached over her shoulder and laid a finger on the edge of the painting. ‘God, that’s gorgeous.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘One of Grace’s bees.’ She picked up the painting, carefully holding it out in front of her to view it from a different angle. ‘Sorry, what did you ask me?’
Ned smiled. ‘Nothing really. I just wondered why you were hiding away in here, when you’d have more room to spread out in the kitchen.’
Flora pulled a face as she turned to look up at him. ‘I thought I’d give your mum and dad a bit of space. And also, if I’m in the kitchen, I have to constantly clear away my things whenever it’s meal time. I can leave my stuff out in here, no one seems to use this room much.’ She grinned. ‘It’s been great actually, I’ve got masses done. I’m ready for a break now though.’
She studied Ned’s face. He looked tired, even though she was pretty sure he had slept. ‘Are you stopping for a proper rest?’ she asked. ‘You look as if you could do with one.’
He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Just… you know. Dad and everything… It’s been a bit mental.’
Flora nodded. ‘Hasn’t it just… and quite possibly going to get more mental before it’s finished.’ He frowned at her, confused, but she carried on before he had a chance to ask his question. ‘Actually, can we have our tea in here?’ she asked. ‘Only there’s something I wanted to ask you about and I’d rather your mum… you know, I don’t want to hurt her feelings.’ She kept her face bright and open.
Ned looked slightly anxious but he agreed. ‘I think Mum might take her tea with Dad anyway. I’m not sure he’s allowed out of her sight just yet.’
‘Ah… an astute observation,’ she said. ‘Understandable, but…’
